Furniture inlaid with carved ivory plaques was highly prized by the Assyrian kings. During the ninth to seventh centuries B.C., vast quantities of luxury goods, often embellished with carved ivory in local, Syrian, and Phoenician styles, accumulated in Assyrian palaces, much of it as booty or tribute. This object belongs to a group of plaques depicting animals and stylized plants. They were made by master carvers in a delicate openwork technique characteristic of Phoenician ivory carving. However, the style and subjects depicted have close parallels on stone relief sculptures from Tell Halaf, in northern Syria, and a debate exists over which tradition produced these fine panels.

1957, excavated by Max Mallowan, on behalf of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq; ceded in the division of finds to the British School of Archaeology in Iraq; acquired by the Museum in 1958, as a result of its financial contribution to the excavations.